It`s the underlying gameplay mechanics that matter here, not style. Japan has produced a number of dark fantasy/medieval themed RPGs over the years - From Software`s own King`s Field and Shadow Tower series, Square`s Vagrant Story, Nihon Falcom`s Xanadu Next, maybe a few others that escape my mind now, but despite their unusual(for Japanese games) art direction they are still Japanese games through and through.

And Demon`s Souls was actually quite successful in Japan too. The initial shipment was incredibly small - only 20,000 copies(From Software`s Shadow Tower: Abyss for the PS2 didn`t manage to sell even that, so I guess the expectations were low for Demon`s Souls), but after the first batch of Japanese gamers bought the game, the word of mouth quickly spread and it ended up selling 170,000 copies or so. It also hanged in the charts for quite a while after getting a budget re-release under "Playstation 3 The Best" label.

Looking more closely at the battle gameplay, I see that it's more involved than I previously thought. I might actually enjoy it now, especially since it's supposed to be more easy going, which might mean less grinding.

It`s the underlying gameplay mechanics that matter here, not style. Japan has produced a number of dark fantasy/medieval themed RPGs over the years - From Software`s own King`s Field and Shadow Tower series, Square`s Vagrant Story, Nihon Falcom`s Xanadu Next, maybe a few others that escape my mind now, but despite their unusual(for Japanese games) art direction they are still Japanese games through and through.

While that's a valid point, the problem with that thought process is the fact Demon's Souls doesn't really conform with modern WRPGs anyway, even amongst older ones you'd probably be hard pressed to find a comparison that inherently blows away another Japanese comparison you can find. Arguably part of why it still counts as a "JRPG" as in "Japanese developed RPG", most of the modern ones are meant to be accessible and hand holding to an extent, with Fable III representing perhaps the logical conclusion of that path, whereas Demon's Souls seems designed to just be From Software making a game they would like to play, and the overlap with people outside the company was bonus. That, and there's just a FEEL to it that it's Japanese, it's just not some in your face moe bullshit or anything.

I think one thing japanese developers do better than their Western counterparts is melee. DS is a good example of that, the way you feel the impact of your sword hitting a shield and bouncing back or the weight of your sword when you swing it is something you don'ty usually find in Western games. They just know how to give it that umph.

While that's a valid point, the problem with that thought process is the fact Demon's Souls doesn't really conform with modern WRPGs anyway, even amongst older ones you'd probably be hard pressed to find a comparison that inherently blows away another Japanese comparison you can find. Arguably part of why it still counts as a "JRPG" as in "Japanese developed RPG", most of the modern ones are meant to be accessible and hand holding to an extent, with Fable III representing perhaps the logical conclusion of that path, whereas Demon's Souls seems designed to just be From Software making a game they would like to play, and the overlap with people outside the company was bonus. That, and there's just a FEEL to it that it's Japanese, it's just not some in your face moe bullshit or anything.

Demon`s Souls having a distinctly Japanese feel to it was the point I was making. Hence I gave a few examples of other games that didn`t look like typical JRPGs but were still Japanese to the core. I guess I didn`t make myself very clear there.